THE CROSSING of the billion mark in May this year has brought to
the centre-stage the issues relating to India's population once
again. On this eventful occasion the Government has announced a
revised Population Policy statement and the setting up of a
jumbo-sized National Population Commission. Only the passage of
time will show whether the new policy would deliver the goods. In
this context, the three books under review, which present the
population problem in different perspectives, should help in a
proper appreciation of the issues involved.

By a coincidence, the first book, which seeks to view population
as a resource and not as a drain on our limited resources, has
been brought out around the time the Maharashtra Government
announced its decision to deny a number of benefits, including
rationed food and even healthcare, to families comprising more
than two children. This is meant as a disincentive for parents
who do not adopt the small family norm. The underlying intention
is understandable. However, this goes counter to one of the
lessons learnt over the past five decades of implementation of
the population control programme that disincentives not only do
not work but can also be counterproductive. That is why the
latest Population Policy statement avoids any mention of
disincentives, though it envisages some incentives by way of
rewarding the panchayats and the families adopting the small
family norm. Its focus is on a range of programmes covering
different sectors like strengthening the primary healthcare
service, reducing maternal and child mortality, development of
the girl child, improving access to education for all and meeting
the unmet needs of contraception to motivate people in favour of
the small family norm.

In a sense, the philosophy underlying the latest Population
Policy statement can be said to reflect the basic thesis
propounded in the first book. It is dedicated to demographer-
economist Julian L. Simon of the University of Maryland, who had
challenged the Malthusian fear of the planet being devoured by a
growing population way back in the 1980s. The debate raised by
him has not ended with his passing away in 1998. The present book
seeks to keep it alive by presenting reprints of Simon's speech
at the Freedom Workshop organised by the Delhi-based Liberty
Institute in 1997 and three other articles by him published in
other journals, besides papers by Lord Peter T. Beur of the U.K.,
Deepak Lal, Nicholas Eberstadt and Sauvik Chakravarti, who all
shared Simon's views.

As Barun Mitra, managing trustee of the Liberty Institute and
editor of this volume, notes in his introduction, Simon viewed
people to be the ultimate resource, ``People do not come with
just a mouth but also a mind. They are not just consumers, but
also producers,'' says Mitra and quotes Simon to show that while
population has increased, the natural resources have also become
more abundant, instead of getting depleted. Mitra recalls how
Simon genuinely rejoiced at the potential, which every new life
brought. ``He (Simon) wondered how many Michaelangelos or Newtons
would be lost to the world because of misguided preference for
birth control policies,'' observes Mitra.

On the face of it these observations would seem difficult to
digest, particularly when the nation as a whole has been fed with
the thesis that population explosion is the root cause of all the
ills facing it. However, as one goes through the essays presented
in this volume one cannot but see some force in the thesis
propounded by Lord Peter Bouer that rapid population growth has
certainly not inhibited economic progress either in the West or
in the contemporary Third World and the contention of Deepak Lal
that population growth has had no impact on India's economy,
particularly agriculture and the argument of Sauvik Chakravarti
that population growth causes prosperity and that urbanisation
and free trade are suited to absorb the diverse potential of the
increasing numbers.

If one were to recall the various stages of evolution of India's
population policy over the years one would find that the basic
thrust of the strategies pursued had all through been people-
centred and motivational in nature, except for a brief period
during the Emergency when State-driven coercion was unleashed
with disastrous consequences. An insight into this is provided in
the second book, written by a demographer, whose career has been
closely intertwined with the evolution of India's population
policies and programmes.

The author's close association with the evolution of India's
population policy began when he was with U.N. Population Division
on deputation and was assigned the task of conducting the well-
known Mysore Population Study and subsequently, as Director of
Demographic Training and Research Centre in Bombay, which was
later upgraded into the International Institute for Population
Sciences with the status of a deemed university. He recounts the
various strategies followed from time to time and analyses their
impact. This volume would be invaluable to those seeking a better
perspective of the growth of demography in India and a proper
appreciation of the vital link between cultural practices and
population stabilisation efforts.

The third book, authored by a well-known scientist and science
communicator, also takes an unconventional view of the population
growth. As the author describes in his prelude, it is a third
incarnation of the book Science, Population and Development,
which was brought out six years ago as a companion volume to his
presidential address to the Indian Science Congress in 1992.
While demographers viewed the 1991 census figures as heralding
doom for India, Gowariker read in these a positive trend of
population being under control. Many eyebrows were raised by his
thesis that India's population growth rate was fast declining and
that on the population front Indian people had turned the corner
democratically rather than by force. The point he made was that
people on their own were choosing to have fewer children because
they knew that was good for them. His thoughts presented at the
79th Indian Science Congress were brought out as a book titled
The Inevitable Billion Plus. The present book is a condensed
version of this brought out on the death anniversary of the
industrialist H. K. Firodia.

After a detailed presentation of the views of academics,
intellectuals and experts on the complexity of India's population
dynamics, Gowariker presents his conclusion that demographic
transition has already set in and is moving to its final stage
and India has accomplished the first phase of transition, namely
reduction of crude death rate to a level comparable to that of
many European countries. Based on these, he predicts that with
the birth rate of 21 per thousand, death rate of eight per
thousand per year and the natural increase of 13 per thousand,
India will reach the Net Reproduction Rate of one within a decade
from 1999. According to him, the 2001 Census should clearly
signify how close the country is to this momentous stage of
demographic transition. He rejects the prophecy that India will
become the most populous country in the world. In his view,
India's population will not exceed that of China. It is not that
Gowariker advocates complacency; he does not want to present a
gloomy picture. He suggests massive training of innovative
communicators to convey population-related messages to the
people, achievement of total literacy and making the country
surplus in power for all times to come over the next five years.

All the three volumes seek to bring about population
stabilisation without recourse to coercion or disincentives,
which are coercive in nature. All those who remember the
traumatic experience of compulsory operations performed on all
and sundry irrespective of whether they were in the reproductive
age group or not and victimisation of government teachers for
failure to achieve the targets, would support the ideas presented
in these three volumes.